


and you start to run just as I'm having fun

by felinedetached, SorrowsStars



Series: sticks and stones [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Insanity, Mercy Killing, Multi, Murder, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-08 21:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13467069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felinedetached/pseuds/felinedetached, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorrowsStars/pseuds/SorrowsStars
Summary: If you can't save them from death, perhaps you can save them from sorrow.





	and you start to run just as I'm having fun

**Author's Note:**

> _sticks and stones will break your bones  
>  and leave you lying in the mud  
> but you get scared when we're alone  
> like I might suck your blood_
> 
> [\- Sticks and Stones by The Pierces](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAU2Pf78fXE)

It's the middle of the day when you receive the vision, blinding light and a sudden flaring migraine.

(You're vaguely conscious of Kanaya rushing to your side to offer aid, and one of the children asking about you in a loud, scared voice. There's the feeling of soft cushions and slightly-cold blankets, then Kanaya leaves to comfort the pupa and you're left with your vision and the couch.)

The memories of a timeline you never lived, a doomed timeline, stream past your eyes. So much death, so much death and then everyone's gone, and you're left alone. Immortal, inhuman even in your grief. Karkat, Kanaya, the gods of the new world, dead to essentially suicide. The one that passes afterwards, darkness clouding your vision and draining your will, horrorterrors whispering to you, weaving tendrils into your mind. You doomed them to live in the way they left you. It's almost worse when you consider that you caused this. Uncaring time or a world corrupted by your hand, pick one way to go. Die ~~heroic~~ or **just** , you die anyways, and your family have to live with the grief. Better to have a clean death.

The world settles back into it's normal pace in the morning. Kanaya wakes you up, pressing a warm kiss into it, and you let yourself forget a bit, if only a bit. (ignore the truth ignore the pain) The two of you go back to your lives, and if she's confused when you wake up crying for no reason, then what does it matter? You don't know either. (forget it doesn't matter push the memory down push your Sight down everything is ~~fine~~.)

-(Somewhere within your mind, you recognize the vision for what it is, and keep it in your memory. It's too much to handle for everyday life, too much to think about without trying to give yourself or others needless death or possession. You slip seamlessly back into the normal life, but there's a piece of you which will ~~never~~ be whole again.)-

Time passes, as it always does. The tide of life washes back, and forth, and drags you along in it's sway. The pupa grow up, and your children have kids of their own. You stay thirteen, blessed ~~cursed~~ with immortal youth. Time passes, until you're left standing beside the grave of your friend, your brother's husband. Time stops, then, the day repeats over and over and over and

The day starts normally, here, up to the point where you go to talk with Dave. Karkat is dead, and Dave is drunk, too drunk to do much of anything. He's crying on your shoulder, broken somewhere inside, and something inside your mind unfurls. A needle is held within your palm, it would take but a second to draw it, a moment more to kill. The best path has him dead, hidden from sight, and never seen again. Every other timeline, he dies anyways, after much more pain. This is best, this is best, so why is it so hard?

"Rrrrrhose? You okay?" Dave's voice is weak, as if he's slipping in and out of sleep. "I hope im not bumming you out, being like this. I don't wanna be a drag.."

"Don't worry, Dave. It's okay. It's all fine." You manage to force a little bit of steadiness into your voice, even as you pull the point from your bag. "It'll all be okay."

The world is tinted red. Your tears mix with your brothers blood, pooling on the ground. It's a fuchsia color, that of the tyrant you killed and the witch who saved the dreamers. The horrorterrors offer you a way to quick happiness, but you refuse them, as you have not been able to in the timelines past. Dirt covers over the body of your brother, and you are left on the hill alone.

It's easy enough to lie. Dave disappears, not by your hand, but by chance. He went home alone from your encounter, and vanished on the way. John disappears in the same way, just after the death of his father. You force down the memories enough that Terezi never Sees what happened, that you can go one with your day in enough of a semblance of sanity to avoid needless death. It works for a time, and most everyone is happier than they were. Kanaya definitely notices something off about you, but doesn't say anything. In previous timelines, Kanaya always dies soon, but you think that she's going to be fine in this one. It's not a happy timeline, but it's not as bad as you would think it, usually.

It's dark, when you go to check Dave's grave. It's unmarked, and the others have no idea where it is, but the sight is engraved in your vision, and you don't think you'll ever be able to unsee it. It's dark, and the stars swirl in the sky above.

You talk awhile, sitting on the place where you killed your brother. Talk about what you've done. How everything is better this way, how you're almost certain it's better this way. The moon turns in the sky, and you don't notice Jade until the world begins to sink in a sparking of green lighting.

"Hello, Rose. I've been tracking Dave's scent to try and find where he... died. I know it's been hard on you, Dave and John disappearing. I had thought it might help you cope, finding their bodies. Is that why you were out ?" Her voice is kind, ~~too kind,~~ and you can't bring yourself to say anything. There's a soft "ping" and you drop from the sky, floating gently down.

Jade begins to comb the area as you watch, talking about scents and the possibility of survival. She's close, too close, and you are balanced on the precipice of two timelines- either you die now, or Jade finds the bodies and kills you herself. There's several minutes of movement where you stand, frozen in fear and indecision, and then Jade woofs with excitement, tinged with sadness. A bone hand pokes out of the ground, just within your sight. Jade begins to lift the dirt from the ground, exposing the skeleton, and you say one final phrase.

"Take care of Kanaya for me. She really deserved better."

A needle pierces your skull, twin to the one buried in the ground. And you can see the look of horror and confusion on Jade's face, her green irises surrounded by whites tinged red with reflected blood. Confusion in her eyes, pleading with you to answer.

And time passes on.


End file.
